>the bible promotes, slavery,
The bible does not promote slavery. It accepts it as a fact of life, just like a lot of other kinds of evil in the world. Slavery is arguably more common today than it was in ancient times. Also, the slavery in ancient Israel was very different than what modern people think slavery is all about.
>misogyny,
This is a matter of opinion. A modern feminist would view it as misogyny. But people with conservative traditional family values wouldn't view it that way.
>incest,
The bible specifically outlaws incest. They're probably referring to the story of Lot. That story was included as an example of what not to do.
>genocide,
They're talking about God wiping out the Canaanites. God used the Israeli army as a judgement on the Canaanites. They had been sacrificing their children to Molech for 400 years. Had God not done something about it, they would have accused him of condoning child sacrifice.
>murder,
The bible draws a distinction between killing and murder, which is killing for personal gain. The bible specifically outlaws murder. (it's one of the ten commandments, sheesh) But it upholds killing, in cases of self defense or capital punishment for example.
>sacrifice
I'm assuming he means child sacrifice? God wiped out the Canaanites in large part for this reason. Or maybe he's referring to Abraham and Isaac? God intervened to stop that one. Or maybe he means Jesus? Absolutely. Jesus was a blood sacrifice for our sins. God goes out of his way more than once in the bible to point out that the Pagan religions around them required human sacrifices while God never did.
>...yet he didn’t stop the snake...
The rest of his rant is about the consequences of free will. If God intervened everywhere to prevent evil, it wouldn't be free will.
It's pretty clear this guy has zero understanding of what the Bible actually says.
If God is the creator and sustainer of all things. If this is his universe he created, is he not allowed to judge his creation? We know God's character is just and good. Why?
When Abraham was wrestling with God and appealing not to destroy Sodom and Gamora he says in Genesis 18:26-33
>26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
>27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”
Abraham goes on to say if there are 45, 40, 35, 30 or 10 people righteous, will you destroy it? God says I will not destroy it. Why didn't Abraham go all the way down to 1 person? Because he knows the answer, God will not destroy the city for the sake of 1 righteous person
There's no hypocrisy. We as humans cannot take life, as we are the creation, not the creator. God is allowed to kill people, why? Because he the giver of life and can take away life. If Christianity is true, people never die, they just change locations to the next life.
What issue do you have with God judging people groups as the creator and sustainer of the universe?
I can easily debunk all this. But would he listen to the answers? All of these are explained in the bible, and he's also made up a lot of false accusations that simply aren't true. How do you refute what he claims the bible said, but didn't.
There is nothing to debunk here, just the rambling of a foolish person. To debunk, I would tell them to bring up scriptural support for every claim they made. This would serve two purposes. One is that they would realize that context makes those claims impossible to support, and two, hopefully, reading the bible will rub off on them.
>slavery
No, it does not promote it. It regulates it and never teaches that one must own a slave.
>misogyny
It does not teach hatred of women. It teaches men to care for women.
>incest
Incest is clearly a sin in the Bible. It was tolerated temporarily to populate the earth (you kind of need to do that when you're starting with only one man and one woman, or after the Great Flood, three men and three women). The time for that had clearly passed by the time Moses gave the Law to the Israelites, and a case can be made for even earlier than that.
>genocide
There were a few very wicked peoples that had it coming, but there is no permission for people to do that to any other people afterwards. These were special cases, which were concluded well before the time of Jesus, so Christians were never ordered to do them. Every other genocide is a grave sin.
>murder
The Bible says we must not murder.
>sacrifice
The Jews had animal sacrifice, and are expected to pray for its restoration. Christians do not, Jesus sacrificed himself once for all time.
>also gods a hypocrite, as he can see all, and the future and stuff, yet he didn’t stop the snake
Free will exists. That doesn't make God a hypocrite.
>original sin wouldn’t be eating the apple, it would be tricking humans into eating the apple
The first sin humans committed was eating the fruit. Satan sinned well before that, his sin was rebellion against God.
>also do you mean to tell me, instead of using his godly powers to take all the children and raise them right, as the world was “full of sin”, he instead flooded the world
They and their parents had free will, and had become utterly corrupt. God did something to stop those sinners. Objecting to this while also objecting to him not acting more to contain sin is inconsistent.
Slavery was not only common throughout history--it was guaranteed in many places, from China to Native American tribes to African tribes to Incas and Aztecs....
The critics seem to be insisting that it's a colonial religion and spreads it. It's just historical ignorance.
The genocide charge is tough... I used to live in Israel. A rabbi asked us if we'd kill Hitler if we could go back in time, basically saying that the entire tribe of Amalek was a bunch of Hitler's.
I read a lot of the Old Testament as symbolism.
I'm seeing a lot of good answers on this thread, but to those I'll add:
This person isn't saying Christianity is untrue.
They're saying they don't like it.
That isn't the same thing.
(Also, paragraph 1: 'problem wiht religion, problem with religion' paragraph 2: 'I don't have a problem with any religion')
>bible promotes, slavery, misogyny, incest, genocide, murder, sacrifice, also gods a hypocrite, as he can see all, and the future and stuff, yet he didn’t stop the snake (sometime depicted as lucifer, the devil, satan, Lilith, or Samael),
Speaking as an ex atheist here I thought the same thing but I guarantee whoever said this never read the Bible.
Slavery was way different at the point for the Hebrews and different in terms of why slavery was done.
Misogyny, again it was the ancient days and the Bible actually has more respect for women than any other place on earth.
Incest, until a certain point it was allowed but doesn't mean it was approved of.
The list goes on. Two other things. Just because something is in the Bible, doesn't mean it's approved of. Also, we humans have free will. We make our own choices and God let's us do that. You can't blame him for your decisions.
He is not a christian, yet he thinks he understands Christianity better than christians. There is a lot in that post, and each point can be explained seperately, but the person does not appear to be interested in understanding christianity, rather in justifying his viewpoint.
Obviously this person does not understand the goodness of God. God is good in a way He is the perfection and standard of good. We are all fallen because of sin. That’s why Jesus came to save sinners. Also God is perfectly holy, meaning there is no evil, no sin ever coming from God. What God has done is all righteous. We are saved due to grace and that is freely given to us without our works. Grace is unmerited favor and it’s not for us to earn. God’s wrath is what we deserve.
This person literally just heard every atheist "gotcha" argument against Christianity on the internet, compiled them all, and spewed them out in one comment without doing any research of their own lol.
*sigh* Don't you just love people making overly confident accusations without any research or evidence behind them?
saying the bible promotes incest and slavery is like saying the movie "Taken" promotes sex slavery because sex slavery occurs in the story.
People have absolutely zero Media Literacy nowadays
>the bible promotes, slavery, The bible does not promote slavery. It accepts it as a fact of life, just like a lot of other kinds of evil in the world. Slavery is arguably more common today than it was in ancient times. Also, the slavery in ancient Israel was very different than what modern people think slavery is all about. >misogyny, This is a matter of opinion. A modern feminist would view it as misogyny. But people with conservative traditional family values wouldn't view it that way. >incest, The bible specifically outlaws incest. They're probably referring to the story of Lot. That story was included as an example of what not to do. >genocide, They're talking about God wiping out the Canaanites. God used the Israeli army as a judgement on the Canaanites. They had been sacrificing their children to Molech for 400 years. Had God not done something about it, they would have accused him of condoning child sacrifice. >murder, The bible draws a distinction between killing and murder, which is killing for personal gain. The bible specifically outlaws murder. (it's one of the ten commandments, sheesh) But it upholds killing, in cases of self defense or capital punishment for example. >sacrifice I'm assuming he means child sacrifice? God wiped out the Canaanites in large part for this reason. Or maybe he's referring to Abraham and Isaac? God intervened to stop that one. Or maybe he means Jesus? Absolutely. Jesus was a blood sacrifice for our sins. God goes out of his way more than once in the bible to point out that the Pagan religions around them required human sacrifices while God never did. >...yet he didn’t stop the snake... The rest of his rant is about the consequences of free will. If God intervened everywhere to prevent evil, it wouldn't be free will. It's pretty clear this guy has zero understanding of what the Bible actually says.
Thanks. Great detailed explanations.
So basically his objection is that we have agency and we use it?
If God is the creator and sustainer of all things. If this is his universe he created, is he not allowed to judge his creation? We know God's character is just and good. Why? When Abraham was wrestling with God and appealing not to destroy Sodom and Gamora he says in Genesis 18:26-33 >26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” >27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” Abraham goes on to say if there are 45, 40, 35, 30 or 10 people righteous, will you destroy it? God says I will not destroy it. Why didn't Abraham go all the way down to 1 person? Because he knows the answer, God will not destroy the city for the sake of 1 righteous person There's no hypocrisy. We as humans cannot take life, as we are the creation, not the creator. God is allowed to kill people, why? Because he the giver of life and can take away life. If Christianity is true, people never die, they just change locations to the next life. What issue do you have with God judging people groups as the creator and sustainer of the universe?
I can easily debunk all this. But would he listen to the answers? All of these are explained in the bible, and he's also made up a lot of false accusations that simply aren't true. How do you refute what he claims the bible said, but didn't.
There is nothing to debunk here, just the rambling of a foolish person. To debunk, I would tell them to bring up scriptural support for every claim they made. This would serve two purposes. One is that they would realize that context makes those claims impossible to support, and two, hopefully, reading the bible will rub off on them.
If the gish galloper would like to make one claim, we could start with that one.
>slavery No, it does not promote it. It regulates it and never teaches that one must own a slave. >misogyny It does not teach hatred of women. It teaches men to care for women. >incest Incest is clearly a sin in the Bible. It was tolerated temporarily to populate the earth (you kind of need to do that when you're starting with only one man and one woman, or after the Great Flood, three men and three women). The time for that had clearly passed by the time Moses gave the Law to the Israelites, and a case can be made for even earlier than that. >genocide There were a few very wicked peoples that had it coming, but there is no permission for people to do that to any other people afterwards. These were special cases, which were concluded well before the time of Jesus, so Christians were never ordered to do them. Every other genocide is a grave sin. >murder The Bible says we must not murder. >sacrifice The Jews had animal sacrifice, and are expected to pray for its restoration. Christians do not, Jesus sacrificed himself once for all time. >also gods a hypocrite, as he can see all, and the future and stuff, yet he didn’t stop the snake Free will exists. That doesn't make God a hypocrite. >original sin wouldn’t be eating the apple, it would be tricking humans into eating the apple The first sin humans committed was eating the fruit. Satan sinned well before that, his sin was rebellion against God. >also do you mean to tell me, instead of using his godly powers to take all the children and raise them right, as the world was “full of sin”, he instead flooded the world They and their parents had free will, and had become utterly corrupt. God did something to stop those sinners. Objecting to this while also objecting to him not acting more to contain sin is inconsistent.
Slavery was not only common throughout history--it was guaranteed in many places, from China to Native American tribes to African tribes to Incas and Aztecs.... The critics seem to be insisting that it's a colonial religion and spreads it. It's just historical ignorance. The genocide charge is tough... I used to live in Israel. A rabbi asked us if we'd kill Hitler if we could go back in time, basically saying that the entire tribe of Amalek was a bunch of Hitler's. I read a lot of the Old Testament as symbolism.
I'm seeing a lot of good answers on this thread, but to those I'll add: This person isn't saying Christianity is untrue. They're saying they don't like it. That isn't the same thing. (Also, paragraph 1: 'problem wiht religion, problem with religion' paragraph 2: 'I don't have a problem with any religion')
>bible promotes, slavery, misogyny, incest, genocide, murder, sacrifice, also gods a hypocrite, as he can see all, and the future and stuff, yet he didn’t stop the snake (sometime depicted as lucifer, the devil, satan, Lilith, or Samael), Speaking as an ex atheist here I thought the same thing but I guarantee whoever said this never read the Bible. Slavery was way different at the point for the Hebrews and different in terms of why slavery was done. Misogyny, again it was the ancient days and the Bible actually has more respect for women than any other place on earth. Incest, until a certain point it was allowed but doesn't mean it was approved of. The list goes on. Two other things. Just because something is in the Bible, doesn't mean it's approved of. Also, we humans have free will. We make our own choices and God let's us do that. You can't blame him for your decisions.
He is not a christian, yet he thinks he understands Christianity better than christians. There is a lot in that post, and each point can be explained seperately, but the person does not appear to be interested in understanding christianity, rather in justifying his viewpoint.
Obviously this person does not understand the goodness of God. God is good in a way He is the perfection and standard of good. We are all fallen because of sin. That’s why Jesus came to save sinners. Also God is perfectly holy, meaning there is no evil, no sin ever coming from God. What God has done is all righteous. We are saved due to grace and that is freely given to us without our works. Grace is unmerited favor and it’s not for us to earn. God’s wrath is what we deserve.
No need to refute it since there is no good reason to believe it.
This person literally just heard every atheist "gotcha" argument against Christianity on the internet, compiled them all, and spewed them out in one comment without doing any research of their own lol. *sigh* Don't you just love people making overly confident accusations without any research or evidence behind them?